scifi

We finally got our first look at Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets in motion this morning. We're pleased to say it has everything you might hope for out of a glorious, big screen, sci-fi romp.

The film comes from the creator of the cult favorite The Fifth Element, Jean-Claude Mézières and is directed by that film's director Luc Besson as well.

The film looks nothing short of the grand universe we love to see and seems to draw heavy inspiration from Star Wars.

Anakin Skywalker was initially set to make an appearance as a ghost in The Force Awakens, but he didn't make the final cut. Maybe it's because he looked so, so creepy.

Why the two-face treatment? According to artist Iain McCaig, it's because Anakin's got both good and evil natures inside him:

When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow. That inspired me to propose, for the first time, that Anakin’s ghost could come back … If we see Anakin Skywalker, because he does flow back and forth between Darth Vader and Anakin, let’s see him as a character with a dark and light side. The reason Luke is this whole new entity is because he was the first to acknowledge his own dark side — that it was not separate from him.

It's unclear what part of the film Anakin could have appeared in, but it's likely he'd either have appeared to Kylo Ren, or alongside other series veterans in Rey's Force vision.

At 73 years old, Harrison Ford stands to make at least $34 million for reprising the role of Han Solo. Ford was paid $25 million up front, and given a 0.5% share of the movie's earnings, meaning when the film hits $2 billion worldwide (it made over $500 million on its opening weekend), he'll get another $9 million. Meanwhile, Carrie Fisher only got $1.5 million to bring back General Organa.

Even that's a considerable bit more than what the film's two new stars, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, received; they each only got $450,000 (but do receive a share of the profits once it earns $1 billion globally). If you're keeping track, that means Ford is making 56 times what they are, and 17 times what Carrie Fisher got.

Han Solo is a pretty big deal, but that's still pretty ridiculous. I guess it's a little bit of back-pay for the measly $10,000 he received for the original film.

We know not everyone is able to duck out of work early today to wait in line for the midnight release of Star Wars: the Force Awakens, but in just a few hours we're all at risk for seeing real, plot-affecting spoilers. Luckily for those of us who can't make it to a theater any time soon, there's Force Block, the Star Wars spoiler blocking extension for Google Chrome.

Force Block will help you avoid spoilers by alerting you to that a page you're about to visit may contain spoilers. From there, you can bail or proceed at your own risk.

May the Force Block be with all of you between now and whenever you get to see the movie.

I hope you didn't need to get anything done for the rest of the day, because you're about to be too busy fighting Stormtroopers.

Lightsaber Escape is a new game/experience built by Google that turns your smartphone, in combination with Chrome on your computer, into a lightsaber. Once you pair and calibrate your device, you're off on a quest to escape a Star Destroyer filled with Stormtroopers. They're surprisingly good shots.

Melissa Harris Perry has a lot of feelings about Star Wars, primarily that it's racist, because Darth Vader was voiced by a black guy but played by a white guy.

The part where he was totally a black guy whose name was basically James Earl Jones...but while he was black he was terrible and bad and awful and used to cut off white men's hands, and didn't, you know, actually claim his son, but as soon as he claims his son and goes over to the good he takes off his mask and he's white.

Maybe she doesn't acknowledge the prequels as being real, and who can blame her for that, but Anakin/Vader is a white guy in those and he kills so many younglings. He also first "claims his son" while he's still "a black guy" (a whole movie before he takes off his mask) and, well, if you've ever heard Darth Vader's on-set voice, you'd understand why they dubbed over it with James Earl Jones:

The Wall Street Journal asked actress Carrie Fisher, for her thoughts on the controversy surrounding "Slave Leia" themed toys being sold to children. Fisher has previously shared her feelings on Twitter, but has now provided a perfect way to explain the toy to your kids:

There’s been some debate recently about whether there should be no more merchandise with you in the “Return of the Jedi” bikini.

I think that’s stupid.

To stop making the merchandise?

The father who flipped out about it, “What am I going to tell my kid about why she’s in that outfit?” Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it. And then I took it off. Backstage.